Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LOOKING IN ON: GAMING

With its plan for a $500 million arena behind Bally's, Harrah's Entertainment aspires to be the company that attracts Las Vegas' first high-profile professional sports team.

But insiders say even lesser ambitions would make financial sense. A pro team, they say, would just be gravy for the company, which could easily fill the 20,000-seat arena with concerts, boxing matches and special events year-round. In fact, having a hockey team in the space, the likelier outcome for the arena, might end up swallowing choice dates for single events.

More important, the arena would allow Harrah's to compete more effectively with MGM Mirage, which controls the Strip's two largest concert venues, the 12,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center and the 16,500-seat MGM Grand Garden arena.

A new venue would mean more competition among the arenas to land top-drawer events .

MGM Mirage already pays for top acts because it can recover its costs in ticket sales, including tickets purchased by casinos and comped to high rollers.

A few months after the passage of an Atlantic City ordinance banning smoking on 75percent of casino floors, at least seven Atlantic City properties are moving to build enclosed and ventilated smoking lounges similar to those in some airports.

Although the lounges could be up and running by spring, health groups say there's a chance casinos could end up smoke-free anyway because it will take months to approve plans for the lounges. Meanwhile, the state Senate has passed a bill, now before the Assembly, that would remove the casino exemption from New Jersey's workplace smoking ban.

Nevada casinos are watching the ban unfold, with properties here considering more stringent smoking restrictions of their own.

Ironically, it was the passage of a workplace smoking ban exempting casinos, then a partial smoking ban in casinos, that put renewed pressure on them to ban smoking entirely, said Karen Blumenfeld, an attorney for the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution.

"When you walked into a casino, the smoke, restricted elsewhere, was glaringly obvious," Blumenfeld said. "There was a higher concentration of smoke."

The law now permits smoking at single table games, groups of table games or groups of slot machines.

Unemployment claims for food preparation workers across Nevada were up 45 percent in July from a year ago, possibly because of last fall's smoking ban in food-serving bars and other small slot machine outlets. Rather than ban smoking, several bars instead closed their kitchens, and many are reporting a significant decline in revenue.

And yet, researchers say the economic downturn from the housing slump has made it difficult to quantify the effect of the ban on Nevada's economy.

Unemployment claims across the board are up 29 percent, while taxable retail sales are down in autos - one of the biggest retail categories - along with eating and drinking places.

"Across the board, in every sector of the economy, people are spending less per capita today than a year ago," said Jeremy Aguero, a principal with Applied Analysis in Las Vegas. Even local casinos, which could be benefiting from the ban if smokers are gravitating from bars, are seeing some effect, Aguero said.

Economist Jim Shabi of the Nevada Employment, Training and Rehabilitation Department said restaurant and bar sales have been down during the past year .

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